


still i will love your shadow

by amyscascadingtabs



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s05e12 Safe House, F/M, Healthy Relationships, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 06:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17198606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyscascadingtabs/pseuds/amyscascadingtabs
Summary: She’s used to being there for him when he’s disappointed over a case lost to Major Crimes or a negative review on his self-insert Die Hard fanfiction; she’s done that since the early days of their partnership. This is different. This anxiety runs deep, unveils ugly scars of abandonment issues and separation anxiety she can’t make disappear, and it scares her.When Jake returns home after his time in the safe house with a resurfaced fear, Amy helps him handle it.Set after 5x12.





	still i will love your shadow

**Author's Note:**

> you know how they say "write what you know"? well, I know abandonment issues, and the show canonically says Jake has them. they're shitty, let me tell you, but I do believe they're something that must come up in his and Amy's relationship. so... here goes some self-projection. 
> 
> thank you to [em](http://www.dmigod.tumblr.com) for suggesting a post safe house fic in the first place 💕
> 
> title from shadow by bleachers.

He changes clothes the minute after he’s stepped inside the door and Amy is grateful. Her fiancé may be able to rock a lot of styles, but  _ weird pervert  _ did not quite make her top ten list of them.

Sweatpants and jean jacket are quickly switched for a checkered pair of pajama pants she gifted him for Christmas last year and a NYPD t-shirt, paired with one of his signature blue hoodies, and then he’s safe and home and looks like her Jake again.

Her Jake who almost died today, risking his life for their dads - ahem, their boss and his husband - and then showed up at the precinct in a peculiar outfit and with an action-filled story, one he happily recounted to all present squad members. 

It's been a long day. 

 

She busies herself with making coffee while he changes to a more reasonable outfit, enjoying the simple sensation of making it for more than one person and pouring the steaming liquid into not one but two mugs. Milk in one, an absurd amount of sugar in the other. She carries both cups to the couch table, places them on the geode coasters she purchased post the disastrous party at Holt’s over four years ago, and sits down at her chosen favorite end of the couch.

“Jake?”

“Mm-hmm?” He’s walking laps, back and forth through their apartment, eyes darting around as if he’s trying to take in every single detail.

“Coffee.”

“Oh, sure.”

He keeps on walking. She takes a sip from her own mug, hears him turn around at the end of the hallway only to wander back the same way. He turns, then does it again.

“Jake?”

“Huh?”

“Why are you doing that?” She tries not to put any judgement in her voice.

“Restless”, he shrugs, changing direction once more. “Needed to be reminded of what this place is like. I missed it.”

“That's nice”, she smiles, “but can you sit down and have some coffee with me? I missed you, too.”

“Did you change the curtains?”

“What?”

“The curtains. Are they new?”

“The others were Christmas curtains. These are regular winter ones.”

“Huh”, he mumbles, watching them with some wistfulness. “And the bathroom - did you change something in there, too?”

“I reorganized the cabinets so we can get a better overlook - Jake, please just sit down.”

He stands still, fidgeting with his hands. “Is there orange soda at home?”

“Duh”, she says, watching him go to grab one from the fridge and hold up another with a questioning look to her. She shakes her head. There's the familiar click and fizz of the metal can, and then he finally, though it is with reluctance, moves to sit down at the end of the couch.

 

She starts going through the wedding planning binder nearly on reflex. While he was at the safe house with Kevin, she's spent hours hunched over it at the dinner table, planning the few miniscule things she felt okay deciding without him and asking him about everything else in the letters Holt let them exchange. Still, he’s not seen it all in person, and she's bursting to tell him all about her new idea to name the tables at the reception after characters in Die Hard.

“Obviously our table would be the John McClane one”, she assures him, binder in lap and struggling to keep her excitement at socially acceptable level. He should love this. “And then if there's people we didn't really want to invite, we could put them at the Hans Gruber table.” She looks to him to see his reaction.

“It sounds great”, he tries, drinking the orange soda and mustering a smile she knows to be nowhere near the grin usually apparent on his face upon any mention of Die Hard. “It'll be perfect, babe.”

“I know, I'm actually really proud of it.” 

“You should be.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

 

She knows these answers, she realizes. They’re the same type of short, emotionless responses she’d sometimes get out of him back when he returned from South Carolina, traumatised despite his attempts to laugh about it. Even the way he avoids eye contact, keeps a slight yet notable distance between them on the couch, reminds her of the days when she felt powerless, unfit and handcuffed trying to wrestle his demons for him when neither of them knew how to defeat them. She’s learned her methods now, learned to differ between when he needs her to hug him tight and tell him she’s there versus when he needs to go through all the anxiety-ridden thoughts in detail, but seeing this blank visage on the man whose laugh and grin she’s missed  _ so much  _ brings her back to the feeling of helplessness. 

For someone who’s lived with anxiety as her henchman since she started school, spotting it so visibly in him still makes her nervous. She’s used to being there for him when he’s disappointed over a case lost to Major Crimes or a negative review on his self-insert Die Hard fanfiction; she’s done that since the early days of their partnership. This is different. This anxiety runs deep, unveils ugly scars of abandonment issues and separation anxiety she can’t make disappear, and it scares her. 

 

She places a hand on his shoulder, trying to keep her own expression composed. “Is something wrong, Jake?”

He still doesn’t meet her eye. “No, not at all.”

“Then what’s up?” 

He opens his mouth, preparing to talk, and then he closes it again. She sits unmoving while he does, legs folded and lips pursed, waiting patiently.

“I left you again”, comes an eventual whisper. This voice is quiet, wavering in contrast to the artificial stability of the earlier one, and it’s a punch to the guts to hear it. “I said I wouldn’t. I  _ promised  _ I wouldn’t leave you again, and then I did anyway.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was, though. I did it willingly. I  _ offered _ .”

“You didn’t want to feel indebted to Captain Holt. It was the moral thing to do.”

“I almost  _ died _ .”

“You were doing your job.” 

“I guess.” He shakes his head. “But I still left you, and it just - it keeps on happening and I can’t shake the feeling maybe it won’t stop. What if this is how it’ll always be, Ames? What if I’ll keep having to leave you and you can’t do anything about it? What if - what if I’ll always leave you?”

His voice is unnaturally fast-paced. Only thanks to years of substantial training can she register every word, each sentence stinging more than the last. 

“You won’t”, she promises. “I know you won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Are you questioning what I can and can’t know?”

“I’m not - but face it, it’s becoming a pattern and I…” He grimaces. “It's not what good fiancés are supposed to do, you know? You deserve better than that.”

She raises an eyebrow. “What are you saying?”

“I'm saying maybe you shouldn't marry me.”

 

Everything goes black. Not in a literal way, because she sees the pain in his expression and how he turns away from her in perfect clarity, but figuratively she feels like someone pulled down the blinds and now she's fumbling in darkness facing a conflict she's never had with her fiancé before. She twirls the engagement ring on her finger, drinks another sip of the coffee. Her hands must shake a little, because a few drops make their way over the edge of the white cup and drip onto the geode coasters.

“It’s not that I don’t want you to”, comes the continuation. His words are slower now, allowing her instead to hear how quavery they are. “I want to marry you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my damn life. But you deserve better than someone who leaves you and I keep doing it.”

 

There’s silence, heavier than silence should feel, tangible in the air between them. He looks numb, staring down at the wedding binder with empty eyes, and for the first time in a long time in the history of their relationship, Amy is scared for it.

It’s nowhere a long-lasting fear, luckily, because after many departmentally mandated therapy sessions and private ones on the side, after working next to him for long enough to learn how he handles relationships, she understands what he is doing. He’s giving her an option to leave before the imagined abandonment takes place. He’s saving his own skin in case he has to.

 

It stings and bites at her to know how even after almost three years, certain doubts refuse to leave. Part of her wants to take it personally. She wants to ask what she’s done wrong, why the belief that she won’t abandon him is not as deeply instilled in him as it is in her, but there’s another, rational part of her which knows this is all about his fear of abandonment and not about her. It’s making her rather tempted to walk up to Roger Peralta and aim a few precise punches to the man’s face. 

She can't do that, though, so instead she says the one sentence her mind forms together on instinct.

“That’s literally the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”

He blinks. “It is?”

“Yeah. Including the time Hitchcock asked me if Kevin and Holt were brothers.” She shakes her head at the memory. “Not one of word of what you said there is true. It doesn’t work like that.”

“How does it work, then?”

“Like this”. She wraps her arms around him for the first time in weeks and lets him lean his head to her chest, her head resting on his and the fabric of her t-shirt made damp with a few tears. She feels her own take shape, slowly making their way down her cheeks. She makes no effort to blink them away in this moment. “It’s not about what I deserve, Jake. Believe it or not, but I make my own decisions about who I want. And I chose you”, she whispers, noticing her own voice has begun to shake. “I’m still choosing you.”

Neither of them speaks for a fleeting moment, breaths catching, evening out in tandem.

“There are no guarantees in this job.” By now, Amy is talking both to herself and to him. “You might have to leave again. But you might not. I don't know about you, but…” She combs her fingers through his hair, pressing a careful kiss to the top of his forehead. “I’m willing to take that chance.”

The warm air of his exhales makes its way through her shirt, heating up her chest.

“Okay. I am, too”, he mumbles right before she starts worrying he won’t, and even with the weight of his body against hers, breathing is easy again.

 

“You know”, she says once the anxious tension is not quite as expansive, once her shoulders drop marginally and Jake's breathing becomes less ragged. “I wouldn't want anyone else but you anyway.” 

He laughs. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“Oh no. Believe me,  _ that _ is pure egoism. You think I’d want to go back to anyone else after you?” She snorts. “I couldn’t.”

“You’d miss the Die Hard jokes”, he teases. 

“I would miss the Die Hard jokes.”

“And the Taylor Swift covers in the car.”

“Where would I be without them?”

“You’d miss always having orange soda in your fridge.”

“Well, I guess technically I could buy my own.”

“Nah, Ames.” He’s grinning again as he sits up straight, pulling her close into his side. “You can pretend all you want, but I know you’d miss the orange soda.”

“Maybe”, she admits, putting weight on the e, and then she’s kissing him. Her thumb traces his jaw, feeling a little bit of stubble, and he tastes sweet of orange soda and familiar and  _ home _ . They’ve gone weeks without this, the stolen moment in the safe house bathroom seeming oceans away, and she wants to make up for it all at the same time but knows now may not be the perfect moment. Instead she lets her free hand link with his, his hand covering the stones of the engagement ring safely on her finger, making him smile against her moving lips. It's not a heated or a fervent kiss. Desperate is not the word for it, because although they are, this kiss is one of assurance and comfort. It’s a silent promise that they’re okay, reunited and together and forever. 

 

They pull apart with reluctance, a silent promise of later continuation lingering in the air while he tucks a few strands of hair behind her ear.

“I love you”, he tells her, a faint trace of worry left in his voice but a stronger conviction overpowering it. “So much.”

“I love you so much too.” She wrote it in the letters, but it hits her saying it out loud how much she missed telling him in person.

“I’ll try my best not to leave again.” 

“I know.” 

“You know”, he muses, “if we broke up, I actually think you’d miss my sneakers.”

“Now you're stretching it”, she mutters, but she can't stifle the laughter that ensues. 

 

Charles comes by with dinner for them, making any excuse to see his best friend again after weeks apart. His suggestive wink when he tells them to have a good night is just as uncomfortable as it's always been, but at the same time, it's enough for them both to feel normal again.

 

The next time Jake spends the night at the precinct, trying to get a confession out of a suspect, she gets a text right before she goes to bed.

_ Not leaving _ .

She texts back a single,

_ I know _ .

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Charles may or may not be right in his suspicions about how Jake and Amy's night ends but that's another story (and it's called smut).  
> thank you for reading, lovelies. this hit pretty close to home and wasn't all that easy to write but i hope you enjoyed it - kudos and comments are always appreciated ❤︎


End file.
